View Full Version : Germs and the City
Vegas
04-16-2007, 08:59 PM
Long, but a good read:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_germs.html.
Long, but a good read:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_germs.html.
Just read it...I have to say, not something I'd expect you to post (lots of references towards evolution and such)...
But, pretty accurate from what I know. FDA is very slow to release drugs...
There are a lot of drugs/cures pharmaceuticals could make for foreign countries, but foreign countries don't have the capital, so those cures are left unmade.
And if a pharm did release a drug, and FDA approved it, and it killed (or harmed) say 0.01% of the population, you'd have massive lawsuits against both the government AND the company, even though it protected the other 99.99% just fine.
A big clusterfuck.
But germs won't stop. And they're bad.
One thing I disagree with in this story is towards the end, he says people need to "fear" the organisms. I don't agree...fear isn't a good think all the time...but people do need to be "aware" of everything that could happen and is happening.
Vegas
04-17-2007, 03:59 PM
Just read it...I have to say, not something I'd expect you to post (lots of references towards evolution and such)...
But, pretty accurate from what I know. FDA is very slow to release drugs...
There are a lot of drugs/cures pharmaceuticals could make for foreign countries, but foreign countries don't have the capital, so those cures are left unmade.
And if a pharm did release a drug, and FDA approved it, and it killed (or harmed) say 0.01% of the population, you'd have massive lawsuits against both the government AND the company, even though it protected the other 99.99% just fine.
A big clusterfuck.
But germs won't stop. And they're bad.
One thing I disagree with in this story is towards the end, he says people need to "fear" the organisms. I don't agree...fear isn't a good think all the time...but people do need to be "aware" of everything that could happen and is happening.
There are plenty of good scientific articles that are not made bad articles just because they have an evolution bias. It's something I'm quite used to.
Vegas
04-17-2007, 04:00 PM
And as far as the fear thing goes, I agree that it's brought up far too often. But it is effective in getting people to read/watch the news. Just like the whole global warming scare or the pollution caused ice age 30 years ago.
And as far as the fear thing goes, I agree that it's brought up far too often. But it is effective in getting people to read/watch the news. Just like the whole global warming scare or the pollution caused ice age 30 years ago.
Fear is the key to manipulation. I feel that we had a country paralyzed by fear after 9/11, and it was taken advantage of. The same thing with pretty much every war we have ever been in. We were made to think that communists wanted to take us over. After 9/11 we were made to think nobody is safe anywhere at any time. Instead of hearing that we have nothing to fear, and our strength would pull us through, we were made to do stupid human tricks at the airport (lighters allowed?) and pay attention to the color-coded terrorist alert (raised at suspicious times). We were told to buy duct tape and plastic (doesn't work at all). We were told that the only way to stop these people was to kill them all (which is impossible). We were told that it was necessary for the government to listen in on our private conversations and read our email (they have). We were told that you didn't have anything to worry about if we weren't doing anything wrong. We were told that there were special "free-speech" zones to dissent if we wanted at the RNC and DNC. We were told that next could come a nuke from Iraq (lol). We were told that there was meetings between AlQaeda and Saddam (lie). We were told that Saddam had crop dusters to spray chemicals on us (wow). We were told that there was no other way to handle this, and that you were with us or against us.
We were frozen by fear, and it paralyzed us into making really bad decisions. The Bushies know it too, and they used it to win an election in 04. The Dems know it too, and are currently using it to try and take power back. It is not a good thing IMO.
Fear is the key to manipulation. I feel that we had a country paralyzed by fear after 9/11, and it was taken advantage of. The same thing with pretty much every war we have ever been in. We were made to think that communists wanted to take us over. After 9/11 we were made to think nobody is safe anywhere at any time. Instead of hearing that we have nothing to fear, and our strength would pull us through, we were made to do stupid human tricks at the airport (lighters allowed?) and pay attention to the color-coded terrorist alert (raised at suspicious times). We were told to buy duct tape and plastic (doesn't work at all). We were told that the only way to stop these people was to kill them all (which is impossible). We were told that it was necessary for the government to listen in on our private conversations and read our email (they have). We were told that you didn't have anything to worry about if we weren't doing anything wrong. We were told that there were special "free-speech" zones to dissent if we wanted at the RNC and DNC. We were told that next could come a nuke from Iraq (lol). We were told that there was meetings between AlQaeda and Saddam (lie). We were told that Saddam had crop dusters to spray chemicals on us (wow). We were told that there was no other way to handle this, and that you were with us or against us.
We were frozen by fear, and it paralyzed us into making really bad decisions. The Bushies know it too, and they used it to win an election in 04. The Dems know it too, and are currently using it to try and take power back. It is not a good thing IMO.
OK, for the most part, I agree with your opinions, but what do Al Qaeda, RNC, DNC, Bushies, free speech, nukes, et al have to do with fear of infectious diseases? I think I get where you were going that fear gets used too much as a domestic policy or foreign policy, but not every thread has to turn back to the above topics.
There are plenty of good scientific articles that are not made bad articles just because they have an evolution bias. It's something I'm quite used to.
Yes, but I believe this is the first one I've seen you post...that I remember anyway.
And as far as the fear thing goes, I agree that it's brought up far too often. But it is effective in getting people to read/watch the news.
I don't agree. Fear breeds ignorance. Sensationalism. If you turn public education in regards to infectious disease over to the media, well...you'll get just as good of reporting as you do for any other topic in the media.
Public education, not public fear (and I'm not talking school systems k-12 public education, but that doesn't hurt to get awareness out there early...probably not kindergarten...but a little later).
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